Boxing Glove Encruster

For maximum jeweled damage infliction.

It was the mid-1960s. It was a time when women’s boots reached their apotheosis: the white go-go. It happened one day while was sitting ringside at the weekly boxing match I attend. My mind was wandering a little– when you’ve seen as many fights as I have, it’s easy to drift off to the rhythmic thump of gloves on flesh. In point of fact, I have something of a white noise recording that I like to play as I drift off on nights that I’ve had too little scotch– a radio broadcast of the 1952 Marciano versus Walcott heavyweight fight. Yes, that puts me right out, as I celebrate somebody’s incredible knockout with a bottle of scotch. I don’t ever seem to remember who wins, which is part of the pleasure of listening to this match over and over again– it’s always new. All I know is, that knockout sure bends some part of the brain’s memory center. Scientists, I suggest a study.

Anyway, as my mind wandered through cloud cuckoo land, I slowly realized that my eye was fixed on the bulky red gloves of the two fighting men. And it struck me. “How many times, Cyrus,” I asked myself, “have you watched those same boring red gloves bring meaty man after meaty man down?” I felt so weary at the thought of having subjected my retina to so much sameness. How disappointing. How dull. It was up to me to enliven the ring. I jumped up, clambered into the ring, and for some reason I don’t really remember what happened next, but I can tell you that the dispute over who will pay to get the blood out of my ferret-fur duster has not yet been resolved.

Even though I was inexplicably banned from the arena, I still knew that I had a hot business plan on my hands. Custom, jewel-encrusted boxing gloves to delight the souls of all beholders. Having attended so many fights in my day, I was well-acquainted with many a noble pugilist, and though silver threads and golden needles may not have been able to mend their hearts, they could at the very least put a spring into their steps. In addition to the mats, that is.

It wasn’t difficult to implement my plans. I already had a factory floor’s worth of pre-teens trained for sewing kid gloves. (I’m in a prime position for market takeover when ladies driving gloves come back into style, just you wait… my back inventory occupies no small corner of a warehouse.) It was an easy transition to embellishing padded leather mitts. In fact, one of the little factory girls wrote this song for me in thanks, and even made a video for it that included images of the factory in which these industrious young souls toiled:

In any case, my beautiful gloves are now only used in unsanctioned fights. Some bureaucratic nonsense about increased lacerations due to mini gem edges and infection related to bacterial colonies living in “difficult to sanitize vanity gloves,” resulted in their being banned from sanctioned fights not 3 months after their introduction to the market. I didn’t mind too much, though. I’d planned ahead for the the burgeoning vintage novelty market, and am now making a healthy profit from the sale of autographed gem gloves, all of which goes directly into my scotch account.